On Dec. 7, 1946, fiddler Warner E. “Pop” Farver was cutting firewood with a buzz saw at his farm in Mechanic Township in southern Holmes County.

He was working with his son, Wilford. While Wilford was bringing back more wood to be sawed, Farver worked by himself to cut a piece of wood into smaller pieces. The wood got caught in the saw, which caused the shaft holding the saw to break off. The saw dropped to the ground, bounced off a piece of wood, struck Farver’s right leg and then cut off his right arm, five inches below the elbow.

“All this happened in an instant,” Farver later wrote. “All I realized of anything happening was the saw flying past my head. The saw striking my leg, arm and shoulder was never felt. ... The pain and suffering came afterwards.”

The accident occurred just four months after the death of his wife, Nellie.

Moments after the accident, his younger son, Earl, arrived from Wooster to go rabbit hunting. Farver’s two sons rushed him to Pomerene Hospital in Millersburg in Farver’s 1939 V-8 Ford, arriving there in 15 minutes.

Farver remained in the hospital for a week after his arm was amputated.

The loss of a right arm was a major hindrance to a fiddle player who traveled the area with his family band.

In March 1947, Farver was fitted with an artificial arm. “In six weeks, after first using the arm, I began playing violin and bass fiddle again in my orchestra, and still do,” he wrote in 1957.

Mike Gerber of Millersburg, a fellow musician who befriended Farver in the early 1970s, recalled that Farver clamped his violin bow to his artificial arm, which allowed him to play the instrument with just one hand.

“He was going to play, regardless,” Gerber said.

Farver’s orchestra continued to perform until 1964.

After his mother, Lucy, fell in 1949 and became an invalid, Farver had to spend much of his time at home caring for her. That gave him time to focus on his other passion — local history. In the decade that followed, he wrote the “Christian Farver Family History” and assembled a series of articles on Mechanic Township.

His mother and other older relatives were a major source of information for these efforts.

He completed another book, “Indian Lore of the Muskingum Headwaters of Ohio,” in 1960. It was published in 1973.

“He was such a history buff,” Gerber said, noting that Farver knew lots of people, where they lived, who owned arrowhead collections and knew about Indian mounds in the area. Because he spoke Pennsylvania Dutch, he also was well acquainted with the Amish.

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All told, Farver assembled 100 notebooks filled with the history of Holmes County and surrounding counties. After his death, the notebooks were donated to the Holmes County Historical Society.

Farver was an avid writer. He began contributing news items to the Holmes County Farmer when he was 11. His articles were published in newspapers in Holmes, Tuscarawas, Coshocton and Wayne counties, as well as magazines such as Ohio Farmer, Country Gentleman and others.

Decades after his passing in 1973, Pop Farver’s contributions as a musician and a historian remain a significant part of Holmes County’s heritage. In 2005, the historical society staged a concert featuring tunes written by Farver. Local musicians performed the music, including Gerber’s group, the String-a-longs.

Pop Farver tunes remain a part of the String-a-longs’ repertoire to this day.

The Holmes County Historical Society has for sale a CD of music from the concert, as well as a CD of the 100 volumes of history compiled by Farver. They are available at the Victorian House Museum, 484 Wooster Road, Millersburg.

Jon Baker is a reporter for The Times-Reporter. He can be reached via email at jon.baker@timesreporter.com.